I M Perfect lady

Tag: growth

  • Living Life.

    Today I was able to see the overall appearance of being broken and being the only repairman to fix me. 

    To see my life like a broken clock, and have the clock actually doing the repairs while still telling time, to be changing the insides while the insides were still being used; their intricate pieces falling together to make me who I am, without rendering them useless or forever ruined beyond repair.

    It seems literally insane that those of us from dysfunctional homes are the ones to get us functional, and we are to do this while living life, raising children, going to work, and navigating friendships and relationships. 

    To know you are broken and all mixed up and yet it is from that state you have to be the one to right yourself, to swim out of the swirling waters and find the calm sea and learn to stay there.

    What I first became shockingly clear about was how broken and upside down and backwards I was. It was a miracle I was functioning as a human being.  And it is from this inside out and backwards state that you begin to make corrections. 

    It honestly is like being a broken clock and making repairs on your self from the inside out, while remaining in working order.  Even though it was tempting, I just couldn’t fall apart! 

    There were literally times where I felt that what they were asking was far too much. 

    As the changes are happening inside, I can go from a little lost girl who needs a mother to mothering my own children, from being in need of nurturing to nurturing, without a breath of space between. 

    Life situations will bring to surface old working aspects of me to be worked on, and I can be overwhelmed by sorrow or indignant with anger and fear…I can be an indignant mother or a wounded child…and I also have to get the message while being upset.  

    Be the broken part and the solution.

    Situations arise that will bring forth that which needs to be healed, and at times, I get tired of being broken and being the fixer too. 

    Today the swings from old to new are swifter, but in the past, I could linger for days in a quandary trying to figure out what was wrong, what was being asked of me in order to return to inner peace.

     My old clock ran like a top for dysfunction and I am reworking it now to run beautifully on peace, love and joy.

     Using the same moving parts, I am getting them to respond differently.

    This has been a full time job and one that is best done in the middle of a full working life, for it is there we can fine tune our instruments to get them responding properly.  We have live living breathing humans to help show us where we are not, where our thinking and beliefs are broken. 

    Each time I respond in fear…I have found another broken piece.  At times it seems that this work is never ending, for the more I fix, the more there seems to be broken. 

    I fix the inside and then have to go and try it out in relationships on the outside.  

    It is one thing to change your beliefs, it is another to then use them in real living color, to set forth and be that which you just discovered.

    My old clock was energized by falsehood and this new one runs on truth.

    As much as this boggles the mind, I have also experienced the same confusion with my emotions and feelings. 

    It is incredible to have great gulps of sorrow for losing an old piece, to enormous clouds of peace settle in its place as the new arrives.

    It seems I have been forever within a moving and changing landscape, and it then occurred to me this is living life. 

     

     

  • When I am 80.

    My writing assignment was to write a letter from my eight-year-old self to my adult self, and I sat there blank.  I could not figure out what the little girl needed to tell me.

     

    So, I went and did my morning yoga session. And it came to me that if I look at her sitting within a family of dysfunction and her seeing her older self having escaped, that perhaps then there would be lots to say.

     

    My little self would look upon this adult woman and admire the strength it took for her to walk the walk needed to walk the walk to get her out of the situation of her childhood and to now be working on becoming more artful self.

     

    She at 8 could look upon me where I stand today and be so grateful that I was able to circle back and regain the ownership and awareness of her soul. 

     

    That I was able to traverse the wild churning waters of abuse and arrive seemingly unscathed and actually prospering as an adult woman, she would be amazed at my ability to withstand the truth and then to make new choices based upon it.

     

    She would be so grateful that I am no longer in abusive relationships or that I am still being victimized, that I have learned how to do self care, to speak for my self and have the strength to follow through.

     

    She would breath a sigh of relief to know that we survived and are now heading into an even brighter future, where I am honing my self-awareness with yoga and The Artist’s Way, that we are on the pathway of self-loving.

    At times I too find it hard to see the distance I traveled and the depth and breath of change that my life has withstood…I stand with my little girl in awe of where we have been and sit in gratitude we not only survived but also are thriving.

     

    What brings me the most peace is that I can look straight into my little girl’s eyes and feel proud and wise and strong, and not have to look away in shame and guilt.

     

    I feel so strongly confident that we are on the right path, and that when I am 80; I will look upon this 52-year-old self the same way.

     

    And in fact there is a writing assignment to write a letter from your 80-year-old self to your 50-year-old self.

     

    I found that much easier, for I was telling me what the Artist’s Way is teaching me, to be more artful, more daring, more wild in learning new things and experimenting, to go out and grasp all the delights the world has to offer, to change your routine, to add some spice and thrill, to toss in colorful experiences…

     

    I want to be at 80, what I am today, but more of it. 

     

    I want to look backwards at the next 30 years and be breathless at what I did!

     

    Each Artist’s date is adding to the list of things that will blow my mind as I look back when I am 80.

     

     

     

     

  • New old natural way…

    I am strong enough to become weak and vulnerable.

    I am now open to receive instead of standing in defense, to look at life with an open chest instead of hunched over in protection.

    As I did yoga today, in the postures that required me to have my arms wide open and breathing deeply opening my chest, I visualized me receiving.

    Opening up like a flower bloom to welcome in the Sun.

    Receiving is something that I have forgotten to do for me, yet inside I feel the urge to receive.

    I am not sure what, for it is different than wanting or desiring, it is much easier… just being open and soft and welcoming.

    My hardness was for self-protection and as I discovered my voice, spoke my feelings and set up boundaries, my hardness began to soften and become supple.

    I was growing stronger and softer, exchanging old tired overworked defense muscles for the unused scrunched up receiving ones.

    In yoga I notice you have to relax one muscle and tense up the other, it is letting go and pulling, that in order to go deeper you relax one set and flex the other.

    Inside I feel strong enough to relax and grow soft, to weaken my hyper alertness for trouble and to heighten my awareness for joy and beauty, to be open to trust and love life in a new old natural way.

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  • Fully Engrossed in Her Life.

    “There are three kinds of business in this world, Yours, Mine and God’s. If I am in your business, it leaves no one is in mine…” Byron Kate.

    When you have children it seems that our business is their business at least until they are capable of doing it for themselves and actually that is the greatest sense of freedom we will get when we can see our children flying well in their own business; their lives.

    When they fly way off course it seems that we do have to leave our lives to help them navigate back and at the same time be present in our lives.

    My fear and challenge is to return to my life and allow them to make corrections needed to get theirs back on track.

    And the most important thing to learn is not what knocked you off course, but also how to get your wheels spinning in the right direction again, and the only way to do this is to do this.

    To do the walking, to make the changes, to gather your life back.

    I just didn’t think that we both had to do our parts and return to our separated worlds, somehow I got stuck in my child’s life and my meddling there was actually slowing down the progress of healing.

    I am grateful that she told me what it felt like to have me crowding her world.

    I am also grateful I could hear that and can rejoin my life that has been somewhat neglected. Okay pretty neglected.

    What a gift to return to my business, to relax and give her back business.

    There is finesse to this mothering thing, to help but not takeover, like a hostile takeover I bet it feels similar to.

    Where at a weakened point another entity comes in takes over.

    I don’t want to be a corporate raider, but a loving mom and when I overstay or overstep my bounds, it is like taking over a company, or my daughter’s world. I have the image now, and I can see that I was lurking on the sidelines waiting to snap it up, instead of giving her space to shore up the weak spots.

    I love that I know this now.

    I love that I am not in the business of taking over other people’s business, I love that I can be very content with one business, mine.

    I guess the best mother is there for consulting services and will be asked when needed…until then, she carries on in her world, doing what she loves to do, growing where she needs to grow, learning how to navigate into being a mom in the ever changing landscape of our children’s lives.

    We must remember to keep the woman in the mother healthy, happy and fully engrossed in her life.

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  • Growing Up.

    I heard my own words coming back to me, I listened to what I sounded like, it was a live tape recorder, my son.

    “You are not listening to me.”

    “Why are you being so difficult?”

    “Why do you have to make this so hard, you know what you need to do?”

    He wasn’t screaming, but trying to maintain his polite stance so that I could see he was good.

    I had done this too, I didn’t want him to see the bad side of me, yet after a few times of speaking and no action I would abandon that plan and just go full tilt in the hollering mode.

    I had wanted him to take care of his responsibilities without me having to take care of mine.

    Something had changed within me; he could feel my strong stance and that he had lost his power or rule between him and I.

    I no longer cared about being a ‘nice’ mom.

    I was done.
    I was tired.

    My words, my pleading, my forever telling him what to do and when, my constant directions had me exhausted.

    I had a voice-activated son. If I screamed and hollered, he moved.

    And I was tired of moving this big kid around, for
    I now had to look up at him.

    Perhaps it was his large body or the fact that I was worn down, but I finally had had enough.

    I took his iTouch hostage in exchange for responsible behavior.

    What I want most is a son who is responsible for self.

    What is insane is that I have been spoiling, babying and taking care of him, EXPECTING him to be responsible. Guess there was no need, for I had it!

    I was finally tired of doing his life along with mine.

    I will take away whatever else needs to be taken away to get him to now undo all my years of spoiling.

    It will be a hard and long learning curve for both of us, for I am guilty of over tending since I was so unattended.

    There is a balance in the middle.

    I will continue to find the things that I am responsible for, what a tending mother does, but not a spoiling mother.

    There is a fine line.

    He isn’t a bad kid, but he was teetering on the edge of following his peers and group mentality, for he was so used to following words of others.

    He was perfectly taught by me.

    What is so blatantly obvious is how he treated his superiors at school was the same way he treats me.

    He dances on the line of disrespect, before slipping back into compliance.

    He is approaching the cross roads in life, where he will decide who he is, what behaviors he wants to define himself, will he be responsible or blame those in charge for his circumstances?

    What I know for sure is that I have been a negative influence as far as holding him responsible for being responsible.

    I had taken too many responsibilities away from him and now I am going to have to work harder to give them back.

    And it will be harder on him to learn to follow his own voice inside.

    Perhaps that is called growing up.

  • Hand and Hand.

    All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

    Somehow I missed the melancholy of change, the loss, the death of one life, in order to be in a new life.

    And felt that I was doing change wrong, for I was sad as I changed.

    Leaving behind myself I had known for 46 years, I grieved losing that part of me, as I embraced a change that would become the new me.

    In the case of divorcing my parents, I had to the let the daughter in me die. There now stands a hole where daughter use to be.

    My daughter role is no more.

    You forget to remember the old you is gone, like a phantom limb it takes awhile to feel the new normal, and there is a grieving period, where sorrow can arise in odd places, unannounced sadness pours out.

    That view of self is unrecognizable for a while, you feel strange to yourself inside, and your movements are awkward for you don’t really know what it is the new you will do.

    Even when change is for the better, for a healthier you, you still have to let go and let die the old you.
    For some reason I kept forcing my thoughts to look towards the good things, and felt like I was a failure when I looked back and grieved.

    Now I know that grieving is a natural part of change.

    And with the overwhelming amount of change I have experienced in the last 5, well almost 6 years, it is no wonder that there has been lots to grieve.

    Who knew change and grieving go hand and hand…

  • The Way You Move!

    “A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.”

      ~Anne Taylor Fleming

     

    My solo dance has changed and it has affected our duet, for I am a new dancing partner.

     

    In the duet I am the odd one and we both feel my differences.  In places where I used to go, he goes alone, and in my new ways I go alone.

     

    Perhaps we are both learning new solo dances.

     

    The relationship is what the dance looks and feels like when we are together.

     

    I feel that it is my fault that we keep stepping on each other’s toes, tentatively trying to learn new moves, or feeling unsure as to where to step.

     

    We are out sync and out of tune, and it leaves you feeling uneasy and unsure.

     

    It isn’t like investigating a new relationship, for we have 28 years of being together, of growing and sharing.  It seems harder to make changes within an old dance.

    How easy it would be to bail out and go solo, where you can twist and turn and not bump into someone’s feelings, put up boundaries where you are the only one affected, where my actions only matter to me.

     

    For no matter what I do there is a ripple into those within my house.

     

    I took for granted the smooth dance moves we had, the rhythms and comfort we had knowing each other so well, I wonder how long it will be for my new solo moves to seem normal within the Us.

     

    What cuts to my core is I am not doing this on purpose, upsetting our world for something to do, I am just moving the best I can under the cruelest of circumstances.

     

    I didn’t set out to disrupt our dance, to step on people’s toes, to ruin the duets; I am just a dancer in reality, where in the past I was dancing to a song in my head.

     

    Our moves are awkward at best, stilted and unrehearsed, and sadly at times, more at ease alone.

     

    I was trying to shield the impact of my world imploding and the fall out it caused, but in the end it was felt anyway.

     

    I guess this is what it looks like when a family is impacted by tragedy and when one person changes so drastically that it splashes on everyone.

     

    This is what life is, changes change the way you move!